Shipping on the Mississippi Stalled by Ice

ST. LOUIS, Jan. 15—Frigid temperatures throughout the Middle West have “effectively closed” to river traffic a 180‐ mile stretch of the Mississippi River from this city south to Cairo, Ill., according to Coast Guard officials here.

Hundreds of barges, many of them carrying wheat, grain, chemicals, heating fuel and salt for cities with snow‐covered streets, are trapped in the icy waters along the stretch of the river that is usually open to river traffic this time of year.

Meanwhile, the Ohio River is reported virtually covered with ice and Coast Guard officials here said that what traffic was moving was crawling. The shipping industry ‐and Coast Guard officials are trying to assess the situation and so far they have learned that the chaos on these two waterways is jeopardizing the delivery of coal, fuel oils and salt destined for such cities as St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati and Huntington, W. Va.

At least two ice dams, both estimated to be about 10 feet high, have formed, on the Mississippi just north of Cairo, spanning the river, which is about 1,000 feet wide at that point. Some barges have been separated from their towboats by ice in the river. Several barges have sunk and some barges are aground or stuck in the ice.

The best estimates of the number of barges tied up on the chaoic span of river put the number at more than 500. The Mississippi is said to be in its worst condition for this time of year in at least 30 years.

“The river is effectively closed to navigation by nature,” said Rear Adm. Wayne E. Caldwell, chief of the Second District of the Coast Guard, which is in charge of navigation on nearly 6,000 miles of river waters. These include the Mississippi, the backbone of the nation's inland waterways.

Asks Halt to River Traffic

Admiral Caldwell issued an appeal Thursday to the shipping industry to cease moving on the span of the Mississippi involved. He has closed portions of several other rivers under his jurisdiction. In most cases, all vessels in the icy waters were advised to immediately find safe refuge. Most have been able to do so.

Admiral Caldwell said that he had decided not to officially close the river because of the legal implications involved in such an action. He said that the river shipping industry was sufficiently convinced, in his opinion, that to try to move through the affected area could be disastrous.

However, a 20‐mile section of the river was officially closed because of the sinking of a grain barge, which could present an additional complication to shipping.

There has been no navigation of the river for almost a week, according to Capt. James Irwin, chief of Coast Guard operations here, because frozen waters have buried most of the buoys used to mark the river during the last attempt to navigate it. Efforts to get a broad aerial view of the situation today were canceled because of snow and bad weather conditions.

Most of the picture has been drawn through radio communications with boats on the affected area of the river and from scattered aerial views taken by the Coast Guard earlier this week. While no injuries have been reported to date, millions of dollars in freight are being tied up at a cost of thousands of dollars to the river shipping industry and those to whom the shipments were consigned. Some of the concerns waiting on shipments are beginning to worry.

One towboat on the Ohio River has barges with fuel oil destined for power plants in Cincinnati, which probably will not arrive by Tuesday, the day the utility affected said that it would have to reduce its normal power output by 10 percent because of the lack of fuel. In Huntington, W. Va., a power company said that it was awaiting coal tied up in the icy Ohio River waters and might encounter problems, depending on the length of the delay.

County Is Out of Salt

St. Louis. County agencies here have run out of salt and have begun using cinders on the snow‐covered roads. The county and the city are waiting for salt on some of the barges tied up in the Mississippi River. The city, which has had more than its normal amount of snow this winter, as have most of the Midwest, Northeast and South, has enough salt left for one more major snowstorm, according to officials.

Coast Guard officials here said that several shipments of oil for the Chicago area are also tied up in the Mississippi.

They reported late this afternoon that a few vessels just south of St. Louis were trying with some success to move further up the river but that the boats headed south were not trying to move.

The Coast Guard office here yesterday did order closed to oil and chemical barges a 30‐mile stretch of the Allegheny River from Pittsburgh north. The action was taken to avoid the possibility of oil or chemical spills.

Elsewhere, the Ninth District Office of the Coast Guard, based in Cleveland, reported mounting problems on portions of the Great Lakes that, as in the case of the Mississippi, had not presented major problems to shippers in previous winters.

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A version of this archives appears in print on January 16, 1977, on Page 22 of the New York edition with the headline: Shipping on the Mississippi Stalled by Ice. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe